DO YOU THINK IT’S A GOOD THING TO START IN AN ART SCHOOL?

It was half-past six, too dark to paint, turning very cold. Clouds all streaming away like ghost fish under the ice. Evening sun turn­ing reddish. Trees along the hard like old copper. Old willow leaves shaking up and down in the breeze, making shadows on the ones below, reflections on the ones above. Need a tricky brush to giye the effect and what would be the good. Pissarro’s job, not mine. Not nowadays. Lyric, not epic.

Stopped at the corner and put on Coker’s socks. Silk and wool; must have cost seven and six. But the trouble was, I had holes in my bootsoles and the pavement struck through. Went to a rubbish basket and got some evening newspapers. Shoved ’em in my boots. Shoved ’em up my trousers, stuffed ’em down my = waistcoat. As good’as leather against an east wind. Thank God of the Press, the friend of the poor. Then I went in and lit a match to have a look at the picture. I had a feeling it mightn’t be there. And it wasn’t there, only a piece of dirty yellow paint. It gave me a shock. There, I said to myself, I’ve spoilt my night’s rest. Why couldn’t I take it on trust? Act of faith. That’s all it is really.

“Mr J-Jimson.”

“No,, he’s- not at home.”

“I w-wondered if you’d like some coffee from the s-stall.”

“No,” I said, “he wouldn’t! He’s gone to bed.”

The boy moved off. I went up to picture on the tiptoe and lit another match. This time it showed me a lot of dirty red paint.

Like the skin on a pot of rust proofing. My God, I said, how and why did I do that? I must have lost the trick of painting. I’m done for. Г11 have to cut my throat after all.

“Your c-coffee, Mr Jimson.”

“Mr Jimson has just gone out. He must have seen you coming.” But the boy switched on his bicycle lamp, and came right in and put the coffee in my hand.

“Mr Jimson won’t be back for some time,” I said. “But he asked me to tell you that you haven’t got a chance. He isn’t going to talk to you about art. He’s “committed arson, adultery, murder, libel, malfeasance of club moneys, and assault with battery; but he doesn’t want to have any serious crime on his conscience.”

“В-but, Mr Jimson, I w-want to be an artist.”

“Of course, you do,” I said, “everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chicken-pox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out.”

“But, Mr J-Jimson, there must be artists.”

“Yes, and lunatics, and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you’re sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home,” I said, “and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bobs’ worth of Roman candles in each pocket. You’d get twice the fun at about one-tenth of the risk.”

I could see the boy’s eyes bulging in the reflected light off the boards, the colour of dirty wTater. And I thought, I’ve made an effect. “Now go away,” I said, “it’s bedtime. Shoo ”

He took my cup and went away. And I struck another match to look at Eve’s face. Oh my God, I thought, it’s as flat as a tray. It’s all made up. What a colour. Tinned salmon. Why did I do that? What a piece of affectation. What was I feeling about? And I felt all locked up. I wanted to knock my head on the walls.

The boy came in with another cup of coffee.

“For God’s sake,” I said, “Mr Jimson is not at home, and he does not like tip be interrupted by impudent young bastards walking into his house as if it was their own.”

“Oh, Mr Jimson, but’I saw they’d g-got buns.” And he gave me a bun with the coffee. “I’m s-sorry, Mr J-Jimson,” he said, “but I don’t know any other real artists.”

“W7ho told you Mr Jimson was an artist?” I said. And in my agony I took a bite of bun. It was a good bun and my impression was that the boy had given me the biggest, though in the dim light he might easily have juggled himself the big one. And I was touched. I oughtn’t to have been touched because obviously the young blackguard was trying to get round me for. his owrn purposes. With coffee and buns out of his week’s pocket money. But I’ve always had a weakness for boys like Nosy; ugly boys who aspire to martyrdom or fame.

“Look here,” I said, “I’ll tell you a secret. Jimson never was an artist. He’s only one of the poor beggars who thought he was clever. Why, you know what the critics said about his pictures in 1908 — that’s thirty years ago. They said he was a nasty young man who did not even know what art was, but thought he could advertise himself by painting and drawing, worse than a child of six — and since then he’s gone off a lot. As he’s got older, he’s got younger.”

“Oh, Mr Jimson, but they always say that ”

“Sometimes they’re right, my lad. And my impression is that they were right about Jimson. He’s a fraud. Don’t you have anything to do with him. Let dirty dogs lie, and swindle and son on.”

“But there are artists, Mr Jimson.”

“Yes, Jimson’s papa was an artist, a real artist. He got in the Academy. He painted people with their noses right between their eyes. He started measuring up the human clock at ten years old, and he worked sixteen hours a day for fifty years. And died a pauper in quite considerable misery. Personally, I’d rather be eaten plive by slow worms.”

“What d-did he p-paint?”

“Pictures,” I said severely. I saw the way the boy’s mind was going. “Art. Jimson’s papa may have been in the Academy and painted nicely, but his pictures were definitely art. A lot of artists have painted nicely. But I suppose you never heard of Raphael or Poussin or Vermeer.”

“Oh yes, they were f-famous artists — and there are s-still f-famous artists.”

“Jimson’s papa was like that. Of course, when he started, he wasn’t popular — rather too modern. He took after Constable and the critics said he was slapdash. But about 1848 he became famous, for about five years. His stuff was landscape with figures. Girls in gardens. W7ith poetry in the catalogues. He used to get about two hundred guineas for a really nice girl in a nice cottage garden — hollyhocks and pink roses. He made two thousand a year at one time and entertained in style. His wife had three big receptions and a baby every year. But about 1858 a new lot of modern art broke out. The Pre-Raphaelites. Old Mr Jimson hated it, of course. And all decent people agreed with him. When Millais showed his Christ in the Carpenter’s shop, Charles Dickens wrote that Pre-Raphaelites were worse than the bubonic plague. And Mr Jimson wrote to The Times and warned the nation, in the name of art, that the Pre-Raphaei- ites were in a plot to destroy painting altogether. This made him very popular. All really responsible people saw the danger of modern art.”

“The d-danger. But that’s quite s-silly.”

“No, it’s not silly. And it’s time you went home to your mammy. By Gee and Jayj I’d like to see Mr Jimson hear you say that his re­marks were silly. Thank God he’s absent tonight. Get out quick before he comes back and wrings your neck.”

The boy went out and I lit another match. As every painter knows the fourth look is often lucky. It is always a good plan, during an attack of jimjams, to try at least four matches. A picture left about in the dark will often disappear for three matches, and come back again, at the forth, a regular masterpiece. Something quite remark­able. But the match went out before I could see whether I was look­ing at genuine intuition of fundamental and universal experience incplastic forms of classical purity and simplicity, or a piece of bare- fa ed pornography that ought to be dealt with by the police,

“Excuse me, Mr J-Jimson, I thought you might like a s-s-s-s,” and he gave me a sausage roll. “It’s so cold to-night.”

“You are a good boy,” I said, in spite of myself. “And so I’m tell­ing you something for your good. All art is bad, but modern art is the worst. Just like the iufluenza. The newer it is, the more dangerous. And modern art is not only a public danger — it’s insidious. You never know what may happen when it gets loose. Dickens and all the other noble and wise men who backed him up, parsons and magis­trates and judges, were quite right. So were the brave lads who fought against the Impressionists in 1870, and the Post-Impression­ists in 191-0, and that rat Jimson in 1920. They were all quite right. They knew what modern art can do. Creeping about everywhere, undermining the Church and the State and the Academy and the Law and Marriage and the Government — smashing up civilisa­tion, degenerating the Empire,

“Look at the awful disgusting pictures Jimson paints — look at that Adam and Eve — worse than Epstein and Spencer. Abso­lutely repulsive and revolting, as Dickens said about Millais. A shock­ing thing. Thank God Jimson’s papa never saw it. It would have broken his heart if it hadn’t been broken pretty thoroughly already, when the Pre-Raphaelites got into the Academy, and he was thrown out.”

“How could they do that?”

“Yes, they could, because he wasn’t an associate. He was just going to be when something happened and they threw him out instead. Bang. Three girls in three gardens. Lovely girls. Lovely pictures. But somehow nobody wanted any more nice girls in gardens. Not Jimson girls. Only Burne-Jones girls and Rossetti girls. So papa and mama and their numerous family had nothing to eat.” I swal­lowed the bun to hide my emotion. I didn’t know whether I’d be able to live throught the night without my picture. I’m never really comfortable without a picture; and when I’ve got one on hand, life isn’t worth living.

“Mr J-Jimson, do you think it’s a good thing to s-start in an art school?”

“Who is going to start in an art school?”

“Me.”

“Oh go away, go away. Go home.” And I chased him out. I wanted to be unhappy by myself. I wanted to grieve for Papa. That man suffered a lot. Even more than my poor mother who had to watch him suffer. For she had seven children to worry about as well, and children are a duty. Whereas a broken-hearted man with a grievance is only a liability, a nuisance. And he knows it too.